Gordon W. Cowden, 51

Gordon W. Cowden's family released this statement:

"Loving father, outdoorsman and small business owner, Cowden was a true Texas gentleman that loved life and his family. A quick witted world traveler with a keen sense of humor, he will be remembered for his devotion to his children and for always trying his best to do the right thing, no matter the obstacle."

Jessica Ghawi, 24

Jessica Ghawi grew up a hockey fan in football-crazed Texas.

She followed that passion to Colorado to forge a career in sports journalism. It probably took her to Toronto, where just weeks ago, she walked out of a shopping-mall food court moments before a gunman shot seven people.

Matt McQuinn, 27

Matt McQuinn died protecting his girlfriend.

As a gunman calmly walked up the aisle of an Aurora movie theater Friday firing at moviegoers, the 27-year-old Ohio native dived on top of Samantha Yowler. Her brother Nick, 32, also tried to shield her, said Robert L. Scott, attorney for the McQuinn and Yowler families.

Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6

Veronica Moser-Sullivan will always be 6 years old.

The "vibrant, excitable," blond-haired, blue-eyed little girl, who was bragging five days ago about learning how to swim, was one of the 12 people killed in the Aurora theater shooting Friday, said her great-aunt Annie Dalton.

Alex Teves, 24

A friend, identified only as Caitlin on Twitter, posted messages on the social media network early Friday from the Century Aurora 16 theater, and wrote on Twitter early Saturday that Alex Teves was, "One of the best men I ever knew. The world isn't as good a place without him." She also described Teves as a fan of the University of Arizona and Spider-Man.

AURORA — While Aurora police charged into a multiplex theater within three minutes of the first report of a shooting there, more than 20 additional minutes passed before medical personnel arrived at the epicenter, a period when at least one victim was still alive but in desperate need of medical attention, dispatch tapes from that night show.

Aurora fire officials say they did the best they could. They had a truck on scene within five minutes of the shooting, and emergency medical workers treated every victim they came across outside in a parking lot. But, they said, the scope of the incident, unprecedented in Aurora, overwhelmed resources, and they were unable to immediately get closer to the theater because the lot was packed with cars from patrons and police.

"They were overwhelmed with patients," Aurora Fire Capt. Al Robnett said of the first responders, who arrived 4 minutes and 59 seconds after they were dispatched. "Patients were running towards them. They were covered with blood. We cannot move past a patient to get to another patient."

What resulted was a medical response that worked from the outside in — allowing the less seriously injured to get to help first while critically injured patients who couldn't be moved waited as minutes ticked by to be assessed, treated and transported. When medical help finally did reach them, according to the dispatch recordings, ambulances weren't available, and police cars — neither equipped nor staffed for lifesaving — took them to hospitals.

Twelve were killed and an additional 58 injured in the shooting at 12:39 a.m. Friday.

Eight minutes and 13 seconds into the crisis, police began asking dispatchers to send emergency medical help to behind theater 9 in the Century Aurora 16, where the shooting had occurred and some of the most critically injured were awaiting help. Previous requests had already been made for help in parking lots and outside the theater as patrons with various wounds ran or walked in every direction out of the multiplex.

But while that request was relayed immediately, neither ambulances nor trained medical responders approached — they remained in the nearby parking lot treating others. When the medical responders announced they had arrived at the back of the theater — 15 minutes and 49 seconds after the call for help from theater 9 — police had already moved nine or 10 patients into the parking lot outside and the child patient apparently remained inside.

When rescuers from the fire department finally arrived at the back of the theater to help some of the most critical patients, they were thwarted again by the lack of ambulances for transport.

"FYI, right now we're loading patients into back of PD cars to get them transported," the first fire department responder to reach the theater said. "Any ambos we could get would be nice."

By then, it had been about 24 minutes since the shooting. None of the 25 ambulances that had responded from several area hospitals were available or able to get where they were immediately needed.

Gov. John Hickenlooper praised the willingness of police to do whatever it took to get medical aid to the wounded.

"I couldn't believe how many people got to the hospital by police cars and not by ambulance," Hickenlooper told The Denver Post. "Several people (he had spoken with from other jurisdictions) said, 'You know, where I am, the police won't touch injured people for fear they will hurt their back or whatever. These police looked at us, blood everywhere and said, there are not ambulances here, we have to start taking people.' "

The child inside theater 9 who so concerned police is believed to be Veronica Moser-Sullivan, 6, who did not survive. An autopsy report on her death has not been released, so it is impossible to tell whether she might have been saved by a more rapid response.

This is not the first time questions have been raised about Aurora's emergency medical response. After a 2010 shooting, Aurora medical rescuers waited to enter an apartment scene because of the chance that a shooter was still at large, so police carried a wounded victim to a cruiser, then drove him to an ambulance.

At the time, fire department policy required medical help to wait until they heard the phrase "scene safe" from police. After that incident, Aurora fire officials said they would change their policy to leave the response decision up to commanders at a crime scene, allowing them to send help even if police were unable to declare a "scene safe."

Robnett said safety was never a consideration Friday morning and that policy never came into play. Instead, it was simply the volume of patients, the lack of available resources for a crisis that large and the logistics of moving large trucks through the parking lot that made the response difficult.

"Absolutely not," Robnett said. "The safety issue was treating patients. They were not waiting in a safe area. They were treating patients from the moment they arrived on the scene."

But the dispatch recordings indicate there remained an information disconnect between the fire commander on scene outside and police in the theater. By the approximately 21-minute mark after the shooting, police knew they had several bodies in the theater and scores of patients across the property who needed transport to hospitals or were already on their way in police cars. They repeatedly asked for every available ambulance and medical worker in the area.

But a fire commander on the scene estimated at the same time there were just 20 patients throughout the scene who would need hospitalization.

"I'm just trying to sort it out right," the unidentified commander said. "I hear 10 here, four here. I'm going to go with 20 right now. Let's just go with 20 people until we get this verified."

Dr. Bruce Wapen, a board-certified emergency physician who works in a California hospital emergency department and occasionally serves as an expert witness, said minutes are critical for gunshot victims.